Austria-Germany 2026 - Munich

On the way to Munich, we had lunch at Soul of Espresso (archive.org) in Chiemsee, Germany. This is on Lake Chiemsee. On Herrenchiemsee Island in the lake is Neues Schloss Herrenchiemsee (archive.org) which was built by King Ludwig II (more on him later). You have to take a ferry to get there so we didn't visit.

We stayed at the Platzl Hotel (archive.org). The hotel is very nice but seems to be a consolidation of several buildings. Even the bellman got lost going between our rooms.

One block away from our hotel was what could have passed for Bourbon Street - beer halls, gelato stands, sidewalk restaurants. We played it safe and ate at the Hard Rock Cafe (archive.org).

Saturday we walked the center city. We watched the Glockenspiel (archive.org) in Marienplatz. You need to be there about 10 minutes before the presentation at 11:00 or 12:00.

Nearby is the Viktualienmarkt (archive.org). This is a sprawling 200-year-old market with over 100 stalls selling goods from fruit to meat and flowers.

Around the corner is St. Peter's Church (archive.org). We were particularly fascinated with the jeweled skeleton of St. Mundita (archive.org), the patron saint of spinsters.

Our last day of sightseeing was a drive to Hohenschwangau Castle (archive.org) and Neuschwanstein Castle (archive.org). I don't think we could have made it without our great tour guide. Remember the King Ludwig II I mentioned earlier? He also built these 2 castles. The Neuschwanstein Castle is often described as the inspiration for the Disney castles (archive.org).

We had a long night returning the Sixt Ford Tourneo in a rain storm. It took visiting 3 locations and an Uber ride back to the hotel.

Monday we headed to the Munich airport where we again had to negotiate the EES system. The confusion in Schiphol caught up with us. One of us was asked "Where did you enter Europe?" When we explained that the Schiphol border control officer had told them they were OK, the Munich officer said "Well, he didn't do his job." We were finally allowed to pass and board our flight to Atlanta.

Global Entry continues to amaze me. With a 767-400 dumping 238 passengers into Immigration, I panicked when I realized that there was only 1 Global Entry kiosk. However, you just had to walk by the kiosk. It even recognized and approved 2 of us at the same time. Now, if we could only get Global Entry for our luggage!

While it was great to get back to the land of air conditioning and sweet tea, we had an amazing trip and made lifetime memories.

Austria-Germany 2026 - Salzburg

When we arrived at the Hotel Sacher (archive.org) in Salzburg the doorman was waiting for us (but that's another story!). Hotel Sacher overlooks the Salzach River. We had 3 connecting rooms with a shared living area.

We wanted to eat dinner in the hotel but the main restaurant was only taking reservations. We went to the bar where they had a good bar menu. But no pasta! We asked the waiter if he could get us pasta. His reply was "I'm not allowed to say No." He arranged to get pasta from the kids menu at the main restaurant. It really didn't matter that the noodles were shaped like teddy bears.

That "I'm not allowed to say No." attitude permeated the entire service staff. Some of us arrived back at the hotel one evening without a key. I stopped by the front desk and a desk clerk joined us. On the way up in the elevator she asked us what room we wanted to enter.

Tuesday we had a tour guide take us on a "The Sound of Music" tour. We visited Mirabell Gardens (archive.org) where several scenes were filmed, in nearby Mondsee the Basilika St. Michael (archive.org), and Hellbrunn where the gazebo is.

We had dinner at L’Osteria (archive.org).

All over Salzburg we noticed these brass plates in sidewalks.

They are "stumbling stones" (archive.org) to remind us of the terrible individual fates endured by residents of Salzburg. They are placed into the sidewalks outside houses and apartment buildings where the people they memorialize once lived. There are hundreds of these all over Salzburg.

Wednesday we drove to the Berchtesgaden Salt Mine (archive.org). The parking is a little walk away. They put you in sturdy jump suits to keep you warm since the temperature is in the 50°s, The tour is deep underground (425 ft.) and it takes both a train ride and a long wooden slide to get down there. There is a tour guide who lectures in German but there's an audio guide for English speakers (that worked very well). There is a nice gift shop at the exit.

We stopped nearby at Pizza Paradiso Da Stefano (screenshot) (Rathauspl. 2, 83471 Berchtesgaden, Germany) for lunch. This was a little mom and pop place but the food and service were excellent.

That afternoon we tried to visit Eagle's Nest (archive.org) but it was pouring down rain. From the visitor center, you had to walk to the shuttle bus and then it was a 20 minute bus ride and another walk to the actual site. We headed back to Salzburg.

Back in Salzburg, we had dinner at Osteria Cavalli (archive.org).

Thursday we drove to Hallstatt (archive.org) just over an hour away. Hallstatt is a UNESCO World Heritage site and pretty much made everyone's list as our favorite place. You park just on the edge of the village and walk in. It's like you've walked back in time. It sits on the edge of a beautiful lake with swans floating in it. The streets are narrow and are lined with houses and shops covered with flowers. There's a marketplace that's not too big, just right. There's a waterfall tumbling down from the mountain. We had lunch at Restaurant Grüner Baum (archive.org) on a pier with no guardrails. You don't see that in the U.S.!

On the way back to Salzburg, we hiked Lammerklamm gorge (archive.org), some further than others.

We had dinner at Sternbrau (archive.org) in Salzburg Old Town. On the way, we left a lock on the Makartsteg Bridge (archive.org) planning to return to Salzburg.

Friday we left Salzburg headed to Munich, just over an hour and a half drive.

Other Posts:

Overview

Vienna

Salzburg

Munich

Geotracks

My Daughter's Posts:

Vienna

Salzburg

Munich

Austria-Germany 2026 - Vienna

As we were preparing for this trip, I encountered the nascent Entry/Exit System (archive.org) for the Schengen Area (archive.org).

The Entry/Exit System (EES) is an automated digital IT system that registers non-EU nationals each time they cross the external borders of the 29-country Schengen Area. It completely replaces traditional passport stamping.

If you're interested, just Google EES to see what the issues have been.

We departed Memphis on Thursday morning. In our MEM-DTW-AMS-VIE flight, Delta initially gave us only 55 minutes to make the connection in Schiphol. In the best of times, this would have been tight but with EES, we would never make it. So we had Delta move us to the next flight to Vienna - 6 hours later.

On your first entry into the Schengen Area, you have to register in the EES system. This is a passport scan, a photo, and fingerprint capture. Then you proceed to the new automated Passport Control. In the registration area, we were 33% successful. Success sent you to "Route 1." Failure sent you to "Route 2."

Route 1 was a gated kiosk where again you performed a passport scan, a facial image was processed, and fingerprints verified. Our success rate dropped dramatically. These kiosks are very similar to the PARAFE (archive.org) automated biometric e-gates that we encountered at CDG but the PARAFE gates worked fine.

The Route 2 line was long with a traditional border control officer at the end. Processing there was inconsistent with one saying "You're Ok, just keep going." That would come back to haunt us.

After napping in the KLM Crown Lounge, we headed out to the gate for the KLM flight to Vienna. Upon arrival, we were informed that the flight was delayed and departing from another gate about 20 minutes walk away.

They didn't mention that the new gate was in an oven and way too small for the number of passengers. Remember my previous comment about the lack of air conditioning in public areas.

Door to door travel time was almost 26 hours.

Our Friday arrival at the Marriott Bonvoy (archive.org) was a breath of fresh (cool) air. We had supper at Viva la Mamma (archive.org).

Saturday we visited Schönbrunn Palace (archive.org). We took the State Apartments tour with the audio guide. My audio guide unit didn't operate properly so I got a docent to replace it for me. Issues with audio guides will come up again and again.

Schönbrunn Palace is reminiscent of the Palace of Versailles. Like Versailles, it is surrounded by beautiful gardens. 

Looking for lunch, we first went to Settimo Cielo (archive.org) in Hotel Royal (archive.org). After looking at the menu, we realized that there wasn't anything that the girls would eat so we politely excused ourselves. The staff couldn't have been more gracious. Before we left, they escorted us behind the bar where there was a breathtaking view of St. Stephen’s Cathedral (archive.org). We went downstairs to Firenze Enoteca (archive.org) where there was pasta enough for everyone.

The photo below is from the bar at Settimo Cielo.

The Sorbetto al Limone con Vodka (Lemon-sorbet with vodka) at Firenze Enoteca was a big hit.

In St. Stephen’s Cathedral we took the elevator up the short tower that overlooks the incredible tile roof. Don't take that elevator if you're claustrophobic. There was a pretty good view of Vienna's skyline as well.

Exhausted, we had supper at Champions in the Marriott Bonvoy lobby (air conditioned).

Sunday, 1/2 of us took a helicopter to the Red Bull Ring (archive.org) in Spielberg for the Austrian Grand Prix. We had Paddock Club tickets so the hospitality was great but no air conditioning. We went on a tour of the paddock area and had a pit walk. We encountered a number of drivers and got several autographs.

The rest of the crowd enjoyed Vienna and visited Haus des Meeres (archive.org), Museum der Illusionen (archive.org), and the Spanish Riding School (archive.org). There was a lot more to see in the Haus des Meeres than fish and the Museum der Illusionen has gotten to be a regular activity on our trips. Regrettably, the horses of the Spanish Riding School were off for the summer (remember no air conditioning) but they got to see the beautiful facility. It was 102° in Vienna that day.

Monday morning we picked up a Sixt Ford Tourneo and headed west. We were dying for french fries and Cokes with ice so we stopped at a McDonald's and picked up lunch.

By the way, gas was $7.17 per gallon.

The Mauthausen concentration camp (archive.org) was about 2 hours away and well off the Autobahn. We had tried to book a guided tour but they wouldn't allow our 10 year old on the tour. So we took our own tour using their audio tour app. And mine didn't work. No help from the visitors' center. Connect your phone to their WiFi before you start their app. Mine worked fine then.

As expected, any concentration camp is a moving experience. There were over 81,000 recorded deaths at Mauthausen which makes it a pretty minor camp compared to Auschwitz of more than 1,100,000. But contrast that 81,000 to the 2,753 at the World Trade Towers. The photo below is all the names of those who died at Mauthausen.

One of the shocking things we saw was as we were leaving we noticed a large concrete pool outside near the entrance. A quick Google search turned up that that was a swimming pool for the families of the guards. Think about that. The photo below is not my photo.

On to Salzburg after a 90 minute drive.

Other Posts:

Overview

Vienna

Salzburg

Munich

Geotracks

My Daughter's Posts:

Vienna

Salzburg

Munich